Uwazi

Nearly every main voice of dissent in Hong Kong is now in jail or exile, after Hong Kong police charged 47 pro-democracy campaigners and politicians with conspiracy to commit subversion. All face life in prison if convicted.

The group comprises most of the 55 people arrested last month, over primary polls held last year, in a dawn raid that marked the single biggest operation conducted under the controversial and draconian national security law.

On Sunday, the police force said all but eight had been charged with a single count, and would be detained ahead of court mentions on Monday morning.

The European Union’s office in Hong Kong said the charges made clear that “legitimate political pluralism will no longer be tolerated in Hong Kong”, and called for the immediate release of the detainees. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accused authorities of using the national security law to silence critics, called for all charges to be dropped.

Those arrested include young campaigners, activists, and local councillors, as well as established politicians such as Claudia Mo, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick and Ray Chan. The activist and former politician Joshua Wong is already in jail, serving 13 months on protest-related charges.

The mass charge had been feared since the individuals were told on Friday to report to police a month earlier than previously instructed. Many began making preparations on the expectation they would be charged and denied bail, including spending time with family, arranging care for their pets, and buying comfortable clothes for prison.

Local media reported the Democratic party legislators James To and Roy Kwong, and the American lawyer John Clancey, were among the eight not charged on Sunday. Clancey told reporters his bail was extended to 4 May, and said Hong Kong was increasingly like living in a detention centre, “with the freedoms and rights of people being constrained more and more”. Speaking outside the police station before going inside, Jimmy Sham, a key organiser of the 2019 protests, said they would remain strong and continue fighting. “Democracy is never a gift from heaven. It must be earned by many with strong will,” he said. “We can tell the whole world, under the most painful system, Hon

Many of those charged left messages to their supporters on social media.

The charge is the first for Claudia Mo, 64, a former journalist and outspoken pro-democracy legislator who resigned with colleagues in protest last year. “I maybe physically feeble, but I’m mentally sturdy,” she wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

“No worries. We all love Hong Kong yah.”

Chu said he was grateful to the people of Hong Kong for the opportunity to contribute, and was “deeply honoured” to be charged over their common ideals.

The former legislator Kwok Ka-ki said: “Prisons can isolate us, but they cannot stop us from connecting with each other and taking care of each other; chains can lock our bodies but can’t hold our minds and souls!

“Stay calm and carry on. This too shall pass! Remember: it is not hope to hold on, it is persistence to have hope!”

The charges stem from unofficial primaries held last year by the pan-democrat camp in an attempt to find the strongest candidates to run in Hong Kong’s election and win a majority in the legislative council. The mass protest movement of 2019 and the brutal crackdown by authorities had driven greater support towards the pro-democracy side of politics, and in district council elections in late 2019 they won the vast majority of seats. More than 600,000 Hongkongers turned out to vote in the polls.

But at the time of the arrests, the Hong Kong security secretary, John Lee, told local media those arrested had aimed to “paralyse” the city’s government with their plan to win the election and block legislation. He referred to an earlier published editorial by the organiser of the primaries, the legal scholar Benny Tai, as evidence of a premeditated and “vicious” plan to “sink Hong Kong into an abyss”.

In an earlier social media post on Sunday, Tai wrote: “My chance of bail won’t be too great.”

The election was ultimately postponed for a year, ostensibly because of the pandemic. Since that time, the Beijing and Hong Kong governments have introduced numerous new impediments to opposition candidates winning, or even running in the elections. Last week, they announced rules requiring all politicians and candidates pledge an oath of loyalty to the rule of the Chinese Communist party and swear not to act against the government, or face disqualification.

Officials said the new laws would ensure that only “patriots” could govern Hong Kong, with one spelling out that patriotism meant loyalty to the Communist party.

The laws are the latest efforts by authorities to wipe out dissent in Hong Kong, using the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing last June, with the blessing of the Hong Kong government. At least 99 people have been arrested under the law so far, which is broadly defined to outlaw acts of subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism.

Guardian

A court in Hong Kong on Tuesday denied an application for bail from jailed democracy activists Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam pending their appeal against their sentence on charges related to "illegal assembly" during a mass siege of police headquarters on June 21, 2019.

Chow, who looked thinner and paler than in previous court appearances, wiped away tears in court as High Court judge Andrew Chan said he would be referring the case to the Court of Appeal, effectively denying the application for bail.

Some supporters shouted out encouragement to Chow, while Lam made the five-finger gesture of the 2019 pro-democracy movement representing five demands made by protesters, including fully democratic elections, an amnesty for jailed protesters, and accountability for police violence.

The hearing was also attended by outspoken Cardinal Joseph Zen. Police officers cordoned off the area around the court entrance with traffic barriers, and journalists weren't allowed to get close enough to take photos.

Lawyers for Lam and Chow later said the pair will both serve out their sentences, with Lam due to be released in April and Chow in June.

Chow, 24, was sentenced to seven months' imprisonment in Dec. 2 after pleading guilty to charges relating to "illegal assembly."

She was taken after sentencing to the medium-security Lo Wu Correctional Institution near the border with mainland China, but was later transferred to the Tai Lam Women's Correctional Institution, a Category A facility.

Category A prisoners, of whom there are only a few hundred in a city of seven million, are often people who have been convicted of murder or drug trafficking.

Fellow activist and former 2014 student leader Joshua Wong, who co-founded the now-disbanded political party Demosisto with Chow, is also believed to have been placed in Category A.

Fellow activists Joshua Wong, 24, and Lam, 26, were jailed for 13-and-a-half-months and seven months respectively by the West Kowloon District Court on Dec. 2, 2020.

All three defendants pleaded guilty to charges of "inciting others to take part in an illegal assembly" and "taking part in an illegal assembly," and their sentences were reduced in recognition of the guilty plea.

Oaths of allegiance

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong authorities are gearing up to require sitting members of the District Council to take an oath of allegiance to Hong Kong.

Secretary for mainland and constitutional affairs Eric Tsang said politicians whose oaths were deemed "insincere" would be stripped of their seats on the council.

Pro-democracy candidates swept to a landslide victory in the last District Council elections in November 2019, which came after several months of mass protest over Hong Kong's vanishing freedoms.

"The law will fulfill the constitutional responsibility of the government," Tsang said.

"You cannot say that you are patriotic but you do not love the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party or you do not respect it - this does not make sense," Tsang added. "Patriotism is holistic love."

The move came a day after a top ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official in charge of Hong Kong said that only patriots should be allowed to hold public office.

Under the draft legislation, any district councilor who fails the loyalty test will be sent to court for formal disqualification, and banned from taking part in elections for five years.

Mass disqualifications

Political commentators have warned that the authorities are gearing up for the mass disqualification of opposition politicians from the council, who currently hold nearly 90 percent of seats.

Tsang said four district councilors -- Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, Fergus Leung, and Tat Cheng -- have already been earmarked for disqualification.

“The returning officers at the time have already concluded that the four do not genuinely uphold the Basic Law. So theoretically speaking, they won’t be qualified to stay on as district councillors," Tsang told reporters in comments reported by government broadcaster RTHK.

A recent poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) found that several different measures of freedom in Hong Kong were at their lowest level since the handover.

Academic freedom, freedom of association, and freedom of movement all dropped to their lowest ebb in a survey carried out in early February 2021, while press freedom and freedom of speech also returned low scores.

HKPORI deputy chief executive Chung Kim-wah said the freedom of movement figure reflects people's concerns over growing entry and exit controls at Hong Kong's borders, particularly after China said it would no longer recognize the British National Overseas (BNO) passport.

"First they were talking about countermeasures and non-recognition, and then we had the announcement that the BNO wouldn't be accepted as a travel document any more," Chung told RFA. "There were also rumors that there would be restrictions on people trying to leave."

"Our survey conducted at the beginning of this month reflects people's feelings on the BNO [issue]," he said.

Following the imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong, the U.K. launched an immigration scheme for BNO passport-holders that offers a potential pathway to work, study, and eventual citizenship to around five million of Hong Kong's seven million residents, drawing Beijing's ire.

Crackdown on dissent, opposition

The CCP imposed the draconian National Security Law for Hong Kong on the city from July 1, 2020, ushering in a crackdown on peaceful dissent and political opposition.

The law was described as "one of the greatest threats to human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover" by legal experts at Georgetown University's Asian Law Center.

The report found that the authorities "have made vigorous use of the [law] over the past seven months, with over 100 arrests by the newly-created national security department in the Hong Kong police force."

"The vast majority of initial ... arrests would not be considered national security cases in other liberal constitutional jurisdictions," the report said.

It said there are "serious concerns" that the law is being used to suppress the basic political rights of Hong Kong residents.

"Prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights to free expression, association, or assembly ... violate Hong Kong and Beijing’s commitments under international human rights law," it said.

RFA

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have hauled in a rights activist for questioning after he started a signature campaign in support of mass popular protests against the military coup in Myanmar.

State security police in Guangdong's Huizhou city summoned activist Xiao Yuhui for repeated interrogations starting Feb. 18 and continuing into this week, RFA has learned.

The summons came after Xiao posted to a number of groups on the social media app WeChat condemning the Myanmar military coup.

"Xiao Yuhui was summoned to the police station ... he was there about half an hour [that time]," a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named told RFA.

"He's back home now, but the state security police have him in their sights, and they call him in at random," the person said.

Xiao, who was interrogated by police from the Luoxi district police station in Guangzhou, Hengli district police station in Dongguan, and Huizhou municipal police department, is now being pressured to remain in or near his home.

While in Huizhou city, some 30 kilometers away from his home in Hengli district, on Monday night, Xiao received repeated phone calls from officers at his local Yuantongqiao police station asking him to report to them.

Xiao made the trip home, eventually arriving in the early hours of Tuesday, where he was forced to write the guarantee before being released.

Dissident Wang Aizhong, who is based in Guangdong's provincial capital, Guangzhou, said she had heard similar news of Xiao.

"It was about supporting the people of Myanmar [against the coup]," Wang said. "I didn't see it personally."

Targeted before

She said Xiao has been targeted by state security police before.

"He was detained and held under criminal detention for several months at one point, so he's no stranger to being asked to 'drink tea'," she said, in a slang reference to being summoned by state security police.

Xiao, who was called back in by police on Tuesday morning, declined to comment when contacted by RFA following his release.

"Sorry, it's not convenient right now," he said, using a phrase often used by activists to indicate pressure from the authorities.

Rights activists said a number of WeChat users across China, including Qingyuan, Shenzhen, Jieyang, and other Guangdong cities, have been treated similarly since Feb. 18, for adding their names to Xiao's signature campaign.

A friend of Xiao's who asked to remain anonymous said the authorities had responded very quickly to Xiao's posts.

"He posted to the group calling for solidarity with Myanmar and the protests against the military coup," the friend said. "He got the call [from police] ... within hours [of posting]."

Xiao's earlier detention was linked to his online support for the Hong Kong protest movement.

He was detained by Guangdong police alongside an unnamed woman after he retweeted a WeChat on May 27, 2020 referring to an online letter-writing campaign by Hong Kong's pro-democracy newspaper the Apple Daily, in opposition to the national security law.

The draconian law was imposed on the city on July 1, 2020, and outlaws sedition, subversion, foreign interference, and activities supporting independence for Hong Kong.

It is currently being enforced by a newly established state security branch of the Hong Kong police, alongside a branch of China's feared state security police.

The woman was subsequently released on bail pending trial, but Xiao was held under criminal detention at the Huicheng district police station in Huizhou.

A veteran activist, Xiao has also previously helped vulnerable groups to defend their rights, as well as families targeted by family planning officials under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s "one-child" policy.

RFA

Chinese authorities should account for the death of a Tibetan tour guide serving a 21-year sentence for reporting protests in his native region seven years ago, Human Rights Watch said today.

Kunchok Jinpa, 51, died in a hospital in Lhasa in the Tibetan Autonomous Region on February 6, 2021, less than three months after being transferred there from prison without his family's knowledge. Local sources said he had suffered a brain hemorrhage and was paralyzed.

“Kunchok Jinpa’s death is yet another grim case of a wrongfully imprisoned Tibetan dying from mistreatment,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Chinese authorities responsible for arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and the death of people in their custody should be held accountable.”

There had been no news of Kunchok Jinpa’s whereabouts since his detention in 2013. New information indicates that the authorities detained Kunchok Jinpa on November 8, 2013, providing his family no information on his whereabouts, and later convicted him of leaking state secrets for passing information to foreign media about local environmental and other protests in his region. His 21-year sentence is unparalleled for such an offense, and no information about his trial or conviction had been publicly available outside China until now.

The authorities moved him from a prison – believed to be the regional prison at Nyetang [Ch.: Nidang], near Lhasa – to a hospital in that city in November 2020. His family learned on January 29 that he was to undergo emergency treatment. Several then went to give blood at the hospital, but were unable to see him. He died in the hospital on February 6.

Kunchok Jinpa was a resident of Village No. 5 in Chaktse (Ch: Qiaze) township in Driru, a county in Nagchu prefecture (now municipality), about 300 kilometers north of Lhasa, the regional capital. He was one among reportedly hundreds of Tibetans from Driru detained after a series of peaceful protests in October 2013 against official demands that villagers fly Chinese flags from every house.

He is believed to have provided information via social media or directly to Tibetan media outside China about a protest in May 2013 against planned mining on a sacred mountain, Naklha Dzamba, together with the names of those detained for involvement in the protest.

People from his area, now in exile, reported that in his final communication on his WeChat micro-blogging account in April 2013, he wrote: “I am now at the bank of a river. There are many people behind me watching me, and I am sure to be arrested. Even if they arrest me, I am not afraid, even if they kill me, I have no regrets. But from now on, I will not be able to give reports. If there is no word from me, that means I have been arrested.”

United Nations standards adopted by the UN General Assembly set out that all death-in-custody cases should be subjected to “prompt, impartial and effective investigations into the circumstances and causes” of the death.

As the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions has noted, since there is a presumption of state responsibility due to the custodial setting, and the government’s obligation to ensure and respect the right to life, the government has to affirmatively provide evidence to rebut the presumption of state responsibility. Absent proof that it is not responsible, the government has an obligation to provide reparations to the family of the deceased.

The Chinese government also has rules dealing with deaths in custody. These require the police to “immediately conduct” an investigation into the cause of death by viewing and preserving the surveillance video of the detention cell, and questioning fellow detainees, doctors, and guards, among other measures.

Kunchok Jinpa, whose father’s name is Sonam Wangden and mother’s name is Pelha, had become a monk as a child at the Gom Gonsar monastery (Choekor Jampaling) in Driru. In October 1989, he traveled via Nepal to India, where he studied for about 18 months at the Changchubling monastery in Dehra Dun, the seat in exile of the Drikung Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.

From April 1991 until his graduation in 1996, he studied as a layman at a school run by the Tibetan exile community at Suja in Himachal Pradesh. He undertook further studies at the elite Higher Tibetan Studies Institute in Varanasi, and became proficient in English and Hindi, as well as Chinese and Tibetan.

He returned to Tibet in about 1998 and took up work as a tour guide. According to a close associate, he was well regarded in his community for his stress on the importance of economic development and education. He made several return visits to India, including a final visit in 2012, when he attended the Kalachakra ceremony given by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, in Bodh Gaya.

During the crackdown by security forces on the 2013 protests in Driru, there were reports of firing on unarmed protesters, mass arrests, dozens sentenced on political charges of up to 18 years, and several deaths in custody. Human Rights Watch recently received information that more than 1,325 local people were detained at that time, of whom about 670 were eventually sentenced and imprisoned, although this cannot be confirmed.

Since Kunchok Jinpa’s arrest and imprisonment, little information about the situation in Driru has been available outside China. On February 4, the exile newspaper Tibet Express, based in India, reported for the first time that another Tibetan from Driru, Namdak, about 34, from Meri village in the Tsala area, had been sentenced to 13 years in around July 2013 for assisting Tibetans trying to travel to India. Chinese authorities have not allowed Namdak any visitors for the past two years, reportedly because he is suffering from a contagious disease, and his present condition is not known.

The newspaper also said that up to seven other Tibetans were given 13-year prison sentences in related cases at that time, but their names, ages, and the charges against them remain unknown.

In August 2020, Lhamo, a mother of three from the same locality, died from injuries inflicted in custody there. She had been detained along with her cousin Tenzin Tharpa, apparently accused of sending money to relatives in India.

A collective statement from UN human rights experts in June underlined the need for an independent investigation of the range of human rights violations by the Chinese government. They expressed grave concern over China’s failures to respect human rights and abide by its international obligations, and recommended the establishment of an impartial and independent UN mechanism to monitor and report on abuses “in view of the urgency of the situations” in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

“For decades Chinese officials have gotten away with detaining people without basis and mistreating them, including to near death,” Richardson said. “Those officials cannot be relied on to investigate these violations, so there is an urgent need for an independent, international investigation by UN human rights experts.”

HRW

Police from the eastern Chinese province of Shandong have detained a prominent women's rights activist in Beijing, detaining her thousands of miles away from her home, after she accepted a prize on behalf of jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong.

Li Qiaochu was taken away by police from Shandong's Linyi county after they requested a meeting with her in Beijing's Haidian district, according to a post to her Twitter account on Feb. 5.

The call came after Li accepted the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write award on behalf of her partner, the jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong, and hours after she had tweeted her reaction to learning that Xu had been tortured in prison.

Li is currently being held in the police-run Linyi Detention Center, the writers' group PEN America said in a statement on its website, adding that she was detained on suspicion of "subversion of state power."

"This is an appalling escalation in the attempt to silence and punish Li Qiaochu for continuing to speak out about Xu’s case and about her own treatment at the hands of state security services," the group's CEO Suzanne Nossel said.

"It may also represent an attempt to increase the pressure on Xu himself by targeting his loved ones."

Nossel described Li as a "woman of tremendous courage and conviction."

"She is being treated like a criminal for refusing to relent as her partner is detained and abused ... we call for her immediate release, and we insist the police stop pursuing these spurious charges," she said.

In December, police forced Li into house arrest and threatened to detain her if she kept speaking out about Xu’s case, according to PEN America.

Li was detained in February 2020 and released on bail on June 19, 2020 after being detained incommunicado under "residential surveillance at a designated location.

Amnesty International said at the time that she was herself at risk of torture.

Help for women, workers

Li worked to find accommodation for thousands of migrant workers forcibly evicted from their homes by authorities in Beijing during a bitterly cold winter in 2017.

She also played an active role in China's #MeToo movement, collating and publishing reports online of sexual harassment and abuse.

After the pandemic struck, Li joined a volunteer team that handed out free masks to sanitation workers in Beijing, and helped pregnant women in quarantine areas to find doctors.

She also worked to support victims of domestic violence, which saw a nationwide spike after hundreds of millions of people were placed under draconian quarantine lockdowns in central China.

Li was summoned by police and held for questioning for 24 hours on Dec. 31 as part of a nationwide operation targeting a group of activists who met in the southeastern port city of Xiamen on Dec. 13.

Xu Zhiyong, who founded the New Citizens' Movement, is also being held by state security police on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" after he called on President Xi Jinping to resign.

Xu, who had already served jail time for his spearheading of the New Citizens' Movement anti-corruption campaign, penned an open letter to Xi while in hiding following an earlier meeting in Xiamen, calling on him to step down.

RFA

Authorities in Beijing have demolished the studio of artist Wang Peng in a move he says is likely linked to a planned exhibit featuring the late Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang, who tried to warn the world about the coronavirus pandemic.

A demolition team arrived outside Wang's studio in Beijing's Pinggu district on Friday morning, escorted by police officers, disturbing the family.

"They have demolished my house during a pandemic," he told RFA. "The district mayor said the demolition order came from higher up, from Beijing [municipal government]."

"I was about to pray ... when these police officers suddenly burst in like gangsters and started shoving me around, and they stopped my wife, son, and friends from shooting video," he said.

Wang said he thought the order was likely linked to his plans to hold an exhibit about Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who died of COVID-19 after been warned off speaking out about the extent of the initial outbreak in his city.

"The state security police said I was an 'unstable factor,' so they are doing various things to target me," he said. "The background to this is Li Wenliang."

Wang said the state security police had found out about the planned exhibit, and called to warn him not to proceed.

"They said I would be bringing China into disrepute," Wang said. "Now they have demolished [my studio], because they said it was an illegal structure."

"The political situation is getting to the point of madness," he said.

The demolition came after Wang received a demolition notice on Jan. 23 from the the Xinggu sub-district of Pinggu district government.

It informed him that he would receive no compensation, and would have to have the debris left behind by the demolition gang removed at his own expense.

Repeated calls to the Xingguo subdistrict offices and the Pinggu district government rang unanswered during office hours on Friday.

Political retaliation

Beijing-based rights activist Ni Yulan, who has been hounded from several rented homes by the authorities for helping evictees lodge complaints with the government, said the demolition of Wang's studio was a form of political retaliation for his activism.

She said Wang had already angered the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with earlier artworks hitting out at its family planning policies.

"The forced demolition was directly related to the concerns he raised about family planning," Ni said.

"Otherwise, why didn't they say anything when he built the place; why did they take so long to look into it?"

Wang's recent work has included installations and a book referencing the violence employed by government family planning officials to stay within birth quotas.

He built the studio with two million yuan of his savings on land leased from the local village committee in 2008. The lease runs until 2028.

In 2014, Beijing state security police evicted Wang and his family from their home in Beijing's Songzhuang Artists' Village.

Li Wenliang was among a group of eight doctors who first sounded the alarm on Dec. 30 about the emergence of a mystery virus in Wuhan that seemed similar to SARS.

The authorities detained and questioned eight of the doctors on Jan. 3, including Li Wenliang, who later died of the virus, accusing them of "rumor-mongering."

One year after Li's death authorities in the central province of Hubei are keeping his family under tight surveillance and restrictions.

RFA

A Chinese businesswoman was sentenced to three years’ jail on Tuesday, according to her supporters, after she spoke out in defence of dissident law professor Xu Zhangrun , who has openly criticised the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping . Geng Xiaonan , 46, and her husband Qin Zhen, as well as employees of her private publishing company, stood trial at the Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing after the couple were detained in September and investigated for “illegal business operations”.

There was a heavy police presence outside the court and supporters said they were barred from entering. Friends including Xu and activists Ji Feng and Yan Zhengxue were stopped by the authorities from leaving their homes to attend the hearing.

The trial was broadcast live by the Haidian court but footage was taken down from its website after it was viewed more than 80,000 times and it did not release a statement on the case.

After asking the court to disregard her legal defence, Geng pleaded guilty to charges including conducting illegal business activities, according to a video of the trial that was captured and posted online.

In pleading guilty, Geng asked the court for leniency in the cases of her husband and staff, saying they had been “forced to carry out orders from their boss”. She also contradicted her legal defence and claimed to have been “the sole proprietor and decision maker” of the publishing company since 2001.

“I would really appreciate it if the court would be lenient on them and target all of the sentencing burden on me alone,” Geng said.

She also asked the court to consider giving her a lighter sentence on humanitarian grounds since she is the only child of, and supports, her disabled war veteran father who lives alone.

Qin, Geng’s husband, was sentenced to 2½ years in prison, suspended for three years.

A number of Geng’s supporters, including prominent liberal intellectual Guo Yuhua, went to the Haidian court but were blocked from entering. Witnesses said more than a dozen police vehicles were parked outside the court, and Geng’s lawyers had been warned not to speak to the media. Dissident Ji said he had been told by state security personnel on Monday evening to stay at home the next day. “Two officers came to my house in the morning and stopped me from leaving. The same thing happened to Xu Zhangrun ,” Ji said by phone.

He said Geng had been indicted over illegal business activities involving 200,000 copies of mostly cookery books for which the full publishing rights had not been obtained.

“‘Illegal business activities’ is just an alternative charge to ‘inciting state subversion’ when it comes to entrepreneurs who are critical of China’s political ecology,” Ji said. “The purpose is to intimidate, silence and cut off all social networks they have with political dissidents in a bid to isolate them.”

Geng, who is also an art curator and film producer, was detained, along with her husband, two months after she had spoken out in support of Xu. He had been detained by police for “patronising prostitutes” during a trip which Geng organised for a group of academics including Xu to the southwestern city of Chengdu last year.

Xu, who has since been released but cannot leave Beijing, denies the charges and has hired lawyers to clear his name. After he was detained, Xu was sacked by Tsinghua University in Beijing where he had taught law for 20 years. The university also accused Xu of publishing articles since mid-2018 that “seriously violated” its code of conduct. Xu, 57, has written a series of articles criticising the authorities in recent years, taking aim at Communist Party leaders over the decision to remove the two-term limit on the presidency – allowing Xi to remain as president after 2023 – and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

SCMP

Yesterday, national security officers of the Hong Kong Police Force arrested Wan on four charges of “doing an act with a seditious intention,” a criminal offense under the territory’s colonial-era sedition law, according to news reports.

Wan, who broadcasts under the name “Giggs,” hosts a show on the internet radio channel D100 that reports and comments on political issues in mainland China and Hong Kong, including on the arrest of Apple Daily newspaper founder Jimmy Lai. D100 is an independent station that has about 510,000 followers on its YouTube channel and about 59,000 followers on its Facebook page.

If convicted of sedition, Wan could face a fine of up to $5,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$644) and up to two years in jail for a first offense, and up to three years in jail for subsequent offenses, according to Hong Kong’s Crimes Ordinance.

“Hong Kong authorities’ use of sedition charges against radio host Wan Yiu-sing amounts to a government assault on press freedom and freedom of speech,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Wan should be freed with all charges dropped, and the government should halt its ridiculous efforts to block political criticism by journalists.”

The charges stem from comments Wan made on four shows between August and October 2020, which police allege had an intent to incite hatred or contempt towards the People’s Republic of China and the Hong Kong government, and to instigate Hong Kongers to illegally seek changes to the city’s lawful orders, according to news reports.

The Hong Kong Police Force did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

Wan felt unwell in police custody last night and has been hospitalized, according to reports. He was originally scheduled to attend a court hearing today, but it has been adjourned to February 11, according to those reports.

Journalists in Hong Kong have faced increasing repression and harassment since the passage of the new national security law on July 1, 2020, as CPJ has documented. On December 11, Hong Kong authorities charged Lai with foreign collusion under that law.

CPJ

Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) terminated journalist Nabela Qoser’s three-year civil service contract, citing an ongoing investigation into her reporting as justification. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), condemn the political interference in RTHK and calls for the journalist to be fully reinstated.

The 35-year-old program officer for RTHK regularly aimed hard-hitting questions to Hong Kong Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, and other government officials in the live-streamed press conferences during the months-long pro-democracy protests in 2019. Her work, particularly, also drew the ire of pro-government supporters.

RTHK later launched an investigation into Qoser’s conduct after receiving complaints but cleared her of any wrongdoing. However, the public broadcaster reopened a probe into Qoser’s case in September 2020, and her probation period as a civil servant was extended by 120 days until the end of January 2021.

On January 21, Qoser was informed by RTHK that her civil service contract was being terminated, and she was offered a three-month short-term contract instead. Qoser has already completed her three-year probationary services.

On January 28, more than 60 RTHK employees protested outside the public broadcaster’s headquarters against the unfair treatment of their colleague. Qoser later accepted the short-term contract.

IFJ

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan have struck off a human rights lawyer after he tried to represent one of the 12 Hong Kong protesters detained by the China Coast Guard as they tried to flee to the democratic island of Taiwan.

Ren Quanniu received a notice from the Henan provincial bureau of judicial affairs on Tuesday informing him that his license to practice had been revoked on the grounds that he "used a cult to undermine the law" in November 2018.

The letter said Ren had "seriously damaged the image of the legal profession" after he defended a member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been designated an "evil cult" by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Ren said he didn't believe the reason stated in the letter was the main factor behind the decision, however.

"One factor was my involvement in the Hong Kong 12 case, which was much deeper [than in the other case]," he told RFA on Tuesday. "The other was [my defense of citizen journalist] Zhang Zhan."

"I gave a lot of media interviews about those two cases, so I think they are more likely to have been the main reasons," Ren said.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have already suspended the license of fellow rights attorney Lu Siwei, citing his public comments on the case of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea in August 2020.

'Inappropriate remarks'

Judicial authorities in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu moved on Jan. 4 to strike Lu off, alleging that he made "inappropriate remarks" in public about the case, thereby "breaking Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

None of the attorneys hired by the families of the 12 detainees was allowed to see their clients, who had lawyers appointed for them by the local government instead.

Ren also defended Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in December 2020 for posting reports from Wuhan during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the city.

She was found guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on the basis that she had published "false information" about the pandemic on social media sites.

Ren had given media interviews detailing her physical condition as she engaged in a hunger strike in protest at her treatment.

No regrets

Ren, who is now effectively barred from working as a lawyer in China, said he has no regrets, however.

"I think that rights lawyers in mainland China should stand with the people of Hong Kong, even if it means that they wind up losing their licenses," Ren said. "Hong Kong people have always been at the forefront of Chinese people's hopes for their own society."

"So many paid a heavy price and were arrested, and the [authorities'] persecution [of activists] has been pretty serious," he said. "I had no hesitation [in taking the case] and felt we should do our best to help them."

Hong Kong rights lawyer Albert Ho, who heads the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, said the suspension of Lu and Ren's licenses are the latest in a long litany of actions taken by the CCP against human rights lawyers in China, starting with a nationwide police operation in July 2015.

"If lawyers have no protection for their own rights, then how can they defend their clients' rights?" Ho said. "How does one defend disadvantaged groups who have no legal knowledge at all?"

"Things are moving towards a state of lawlessness [in China], slowly inching back towards the Cultural Revolution," he said, in a reference to an era of political violence and social turmoil from 1966 to 1976 under late supreme leader Mao Zedong and the Gang of Four.

RFA

On January 16, 10 minutes prior to boarding a high-speed train (D2655) to visit the parents of Lawyer Chang Weiping (their client), two human rights lawyers Chen Keyun and Xie Yang disappeared. Recently, Lawyer Chang's parents had demonstrated against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials' secretive imprisonment and torture of their son.

At 11:15 am, January 16 (Beijing time), human rights lawyer Xie Yang texted his location to Chen Guiqiu, his wife: Xi’an North Station. At approximately 10 pm, when Ms. Chen phoned both Lawyer Xie and Lawyer Chen, the calls did not go through. She also phoned Mr. Xiang Xianhong a security agent in charge of Lawyer Chang’s case but he did not answer her call. Around 11 pm, Ms. Chen phoned three other security agents in Changsha, Hunan Province (Mr. Li Kewei, Mr. Li Yang, and Mr. Peng Jinsong). Although the phone calls got through to these lawyers in charge of Lawyer Xie Yang’s case, none of them answered.

Ms. Chen did not receive any information about Lawyer Xie until 6 am January 17. At that time, she learned that Lawyer Xie and Lawyer Chen Keyun had been missing for more than 22 hours.

ChinaAid strongly urges Shaanxi police: “Conform to China’s rule of law and the United Nation’s articles concerning human rights. Stop blatantly infringing on the personal rights of Lawyer Xie Yang and Lawyer Chen Keyun.

Hunan rights lawyer Xie Yang, who recently tried to visit Baoji to support Chang's family, told RFA: "We found out from Chang Weiping's wife that his parents are now under close surveillance, and that the authorities have installed CCTV cameras at the door [of their home]."

Xie said he boarded a high-speed train to Baoji along with fellow lawyer Chen Keyun, but was intercepted by state security police at the provincial capital, Xi'an, where he needed to change trains.

"No sooner had I gotten off the train than I ran into a bunch of people," Xie told RFA in a recent interview. "They claimed it was to do with the pandemic, because my health code didn't scan properly, and that I should cooperate with their investigation."

"But those people didn't look like pandemic prevention types to me; they were state security police from [the provincial capital of] Xi'an," he said. "I told them that they knew perfectly well who I was, and that I knew perfectly well who they were."

The police forced Xie and Chen to leave the high-speed rail station, confiscated their phones and ID cards, and took them to a hotel, where they were held in separate rooms.

They were told they wouldn't be allowed to continue to Baoji, and stability maintenance personnel, or "interceptors," from their hometowns of Changsha and Guangzhou were summoned to escort them back home again.

On returning to Changsha, Xie was placed under house arrest.

"They don't want this information to reach the outside world," Xie said. "There have been rumors going around that [Chang Weiping's parents] have now been detained, but ... nobody can get anywhere near [their home]."

"They are so worried that we will expose the truth," he said. "Maybe they are also worried that we might encourage more supporters to gather."

ChinaAid | RFA

Rights groups and activists at home and abroad Friday denounced China for barring a prominent Chinese democracy and rights activist from leaving for the United States to care for his cancer-stricken wife.

They called the action “inhuman” and said China is a “fascist” state because the activist, Guo Feixiong, is a free man and the communist government has no right to restrict his travel.

Guo launched a hunger strike Thursday to protest after he was stopped at the Shanghai airport.

“I now begin my hunger strike indefinitely at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The customs have officially barred me from leaving the country on suspicion of endangering national security. I urge all the Chinese people and governments around the world to help me,” Guo wrote in a short message to VOA Thursday night, saying that he was being seized by two police officers at customs.

A brutal action

“What a brutal action by the state police and the customs,” he added.

Guo, 54, has since been unreachable, with his whereabouts unknown.

The public security bureau in Shanghai said Friday that it is unable to handle VOA’s inquiry as it is uncertain which unit made the arrest.

Prior to his departure from Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong province, Guo told VOA he is determined to join his wife, who is in the U.S. and about to begin months of chemotherapy after her cancerous colon tumors were removed during surgery earlier this month.

“I will only stop my hunger strike the minute I’m allowed to board the plane. My life will apparently hang in the hands of the state police if you’re unable to reach me at my cellphone [later]… The [police’s] move is extremely inhuman, and they have to be held legally and morally responsible for my hunger strike,” Guo told VOA a day before his planned flights Thursday.

According to Guo, local police in Guangzhou had warned him on Tuesday about attempting to travel to the U.S. They said that his travel plan was vetoed at the last minute by their higher-ups in the Ministry of Public Security, even though Guo has legally obtained all necessary travel permits from local authorities, including proof of a negative COVID-19 test. The ministry also threatened to send police to intercept him if he made it to the airport in Shanghai on Thursday, he added.

Some kind of agreement

The local police, in addition, demanded that Guo fly to his birthplace in Hubei province and talk with public security officers there to reach “some kind of agreement” – a request Guo said he flatly rejected.

It is widely speculated among Chinese rights lawyers and activists, many of whom are not free to speak, that Chinese authorities want to hold Guo hostage and keep him quiet.

“The police have absolutely no rights to deprive Guo of his freedom to travel. This is outrageous. What harm can dissidents, who travel overseas, do to endanger the regime?” a rights activist surnamed Lee told VOA on condition of anonymity.

Guo, whose real name is Yang Maodong, has been an active rights defender and political dissident since 2005. He had served a total of 11 years in prison on charges such as “picking quarrels and provoking” and “assembling a crowd to disturb order at public places.”

He was last freed from jail in late 2019 after having served a six-year sentence for his participation in a protest against the Guangzhou government’s censorship of a local liberal-leaning publication – the Southern Weekly.

However, Guo remains an outspoken dissident, who has called on Chinese President Xi Jinping to launch political reforms, abide by the country’s constitution and ensure press freedom, while urging the Chinese government to deepen its cooperation with the U.S.

To avoid China’s alleged political persecution, Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, and their two children fled to the U.S. in 2009 and have been granted political asylum there.

A group of more than 100 dissidents, led by former Tiananmen Square movement leader Wang Dan, signed a petition in support of Guo.

They said, in a press statement, that “given Guo is a free man, China has no rights to keep him from visiting his family overseas whether it is from the legal, human rights or humanitarian perspectives. China’s inhuman move has proved again that its regime is increasingly fascist.”

“We called on western governments to help Guo facilitate his trip through diplomatic avenues,” the statement read.

In particular, Wu’er Kaixi, another Tiananmen student leader who also signed the petition, called on U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration to extend a helping hand to Guo.

Calls on U.S. to take action

“President Biden has and [Secretary of State] Mr. [Antony] Blinken has also strongly reiterated their stance against China, based on values, … We want to see action following [their] very well-said statement. And we want to see action to help Guo Feixiong and that action will ratify those statements,” Wu’er told VOA.

The former Tiananmen activist, who now lives in Taipei, said that many in Taiwan are also “outraged” about China’s disapproval of Guo’s travel – a move he said “was against the minds and hearts of all mankind.”

Several other rights groups, including the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concerned Group, the U.S.-based Human Rights Lawyers of China and the Taipei-based New School for Democracy, all denounced China’s restriction on Guo’s ability to travel freely.

The restriction “is inhuman and it is also a reprisal to legal activists in China,” Du Song of the Hong Kong-based rights group said in a written reply to VOA, urging China to quickly reverse its decision.

In a press statement, the U.S.-based rights group expressed concern over Guo’s health.

“We’re deeply concerned about his health and life after he has staged another indefinite hunger strike. Guo was once on hunger strike in 2014 for a long time, which had taken a toll on his physical condition… We urge all relevant bodies [in China] to reconsider and soon greenlight his trip to take care of his wife in the U.S.” its statement read.

VOA CAMBODIA

Authorities in the eastern province of Shandong are preparing to revoke the license of a rights lawyer who was hired to defend fellow rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues a nationwide clampdown on the legal profession.

Xi Xiangdong, who had been hired to represent Wang after his detention as part of a crackdown on the profession starting in July 2015, was notified by the Shandong provincial department of justice on Thursday that it will likely revoke his license to practise.

Wang told RFA that the authorities were likely retaliating after Xi spoke out against the mistreatment of his client Chi Shengang, an entrepreneur accused of involvement in organized crime.

"Lawyers like Xi Xiangdong tend to stick to the law when it comes to how lawyers should act, so they are likely anger some people, and suffer retaliation for that," Wang said.

He said the authorities are likely taking issue with Xi's attempts to do his job properly.

"If lawyers [like Xi] try to argue their case in court using reason, they see it as a failure to obey the judge," Wang said. "This gives them the excuse they need to retaliate against the lawyer."

According to the authorities, Xi had repeatedly ignored directions from the judge in the case, repeatedly interrupted judges and prosecutors and interfered with court proceedings.

Repeated calls to Xi's phone rang unanswered on Thursday.

"Everything [in the Chinese justice system] works to the detriment of detainees and defendants," Wang said. "Lawyers are forced to toe the line politically, and they have nowhere to turn for help, and can only rely on public opinion."

"In some cases, this means that they will disclose details of cases," he said.

'The courage to expose and criticize'

Henan-based rights lawyer Ren Quanniu, who also faces the loss of his license to practice, said he supported Xi's actions, because he was speaking out in his client's interest.

"Real lawyers have the courage to expose and criticize [the authorities]," Ren said. "You can't say they should remain silent if their clients are being treated illegally, or are in some kind of danger."

He said he fears the authorities will continue to revoke lawyers' licenses as a way of forcing them into compliance.

"Inside sources say that [the CCP] wants to deal with any lawyers who dare to speak out in public," Ren said. "[Xi] won't be the last to be warned, punished or lose his license ... we may be seeing a new purge."

Xi has the right to file an application for a disciplinary hearing, although such a hearing is unlikely to make much difference to the final outcome, according to rights lawyers.

Xi was initially hired by Wang Quanzhang's wife Li Wenzu to represent her husband following his disappearance in July 2015.

But he was later forced to drop the case after the ministry of justice threatened him with arrest.

Earlier this month, authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan suspended the license of rights attorney Lu Siwei at a disciplinary hearing, citing his public comments on the case of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea in August 2020.

Judicial authorities in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu moved on Jan. 4 to strike Lu off, alleging that he made "inappropriate remarks" in public about the case, thereby "breaking Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

Ren, who was hired to represent one of the Hong Kong 12 but denied access to his client along with the rest of the attorneys hired by the families, will have his disciplinary hearing on Friday.

RFA

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Wednesday suspended the license of rights attorney Lu Siwei at a disciplinary hearing, citing his public comments on the case of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea in August 2020.

Judicial authorities in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu moved on Jan. 4 to strike Lu off, alleging that he made "inappropriate remarks" in public about the case, thereby "breaking Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

Faced with the loss of his license to practice law, Lu opted for a full hearing. He was dragged into the building by police officers on Wednesday as he showed up at the Sichuan provincial department of justice in Chengdu.

"Lawyer Lu Siwei was escorted to the justice department directly from his home in his wife's car," a lawyer at the scene, who asked to remain anonymous, told RFA on Wednesday.

"He wasn't allowed contact with anyone else, and was taken straight inside the building. His two lawyers were intercepted -- one of them got to go inside after a struggle," the lawyer said.

Xie Yanyi, who represented Lu at the hearing, dismissed the evidence brought by officials against Lu at the hearing.

"The allegations made by the investigators during the hearing over Lu Siwei's so-called violations of law and discipline were entirely fictitious; they didn't hold water," Xie told RFA.

He said the hearing had ended with the suspension of Lu's license.

"The Sichuan department of justice made no attempt to investigate the allegations, and just issued a notice of suspension of [Lu's] license without bothering to verify the details," Xie said. "It should at least have conducted a preliminary investigation."

'Illegal persecution'

He said the conduct of the hearing was tantamount to persecution.

"Everyone inside the room were insiders; this was basically a behind-closed-doors hearing," he said. "The whole process was illegal right from the start."

"Rushing to an administrative punishment in such a way ... is essentially illegal persecution," Xie said.

Consular staff sent by foreign diplomatic missions, including those of Canada, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, were also denied entry to the hearing, which was then held behind closed doors.

The lawyer said there was a strong police presence outside the building, with checkpoints at either end of the street.

"The Department of Justice has set up police checkpoints at both ends of the road," the lawyer said. "I also saw a large police vehicle outside and seven or eight smaller ones."

"There are actually not as many police officers in uniform as plainclothes ... [the plainclothes officers] are guarding the place very tightly by following people and coming forward [when they approach the building]."

Fellow rights attorney Ren Quanniu, who also faces the loss of his lawyer's license for defending another of the Hong Kong 12, Xu Yan, wife of rights attorney Yu Wensheng, were taken away by police, the lawyer said.

"There was a standoff between them and the intercepting police officers," the lawyer said. "Some people who had gotten involved in a more intense altercation were taken straight to the local police station."

"Initially, the police denied them water, but they are saying that they have now been given lunch," the lawyer said.

Large-scale purge of lawyers since 2015

Lu and Ren both received notification around New Year that their licenses were being reviewed by their local judicial affairs bureaus because they had "posted inappropriate remarks" online.

Lu, who was never allowed to visit his client Quinn Moon in Yantian Detention Center in Shenzhen, despite being hired by her family, was particularly vocal in the months following the initial detention of the 12 protesters aged 16 to 33 by the China Coast Guard on Aug. 23, repeatedly commenting about his attempts to gain access to his client, to no avail.

In a Dec. 31 notice sent to Ren, who was hired by the family of Wong Wai-yin but similarly prevented from carrying out his instructions, judicial authorities in the central province of Henan, said his license was also under review for "violating Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

Ren's hearing will be held on Jan. 19.

On Dec. 31, 2020, a court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong handed down jail terms of up to three years to 10 of the 12 Hong Kong protesters detained on Aug. 23 as they tried to flee a national security crackdown in the city, on charges linked to "illegally crossing a border."

The Yantian District People's Court in Guangdong's Shenzhen city sentenced Ren's client Tang Kai-yin to three years' imprisonment for "organizing others to cross a border illegally," while fellow activist Quinn Moon -- Lu's client -- was jailed for two years on the same charge.

Fellow defendants Cheng Tsz-ho, Cheung Chun-fu, Li Tsz-yin, Andy Li, Wong Wai-yin, Kok Tsz-Lun, Jim Man-him, and Cheung Ming-jyu were each jailed for seven months each for "illegally crossing a border" and fined 10,000 yuan each.

The remaining two detainees -- Liu Tsz-man and Hoang Lam-fuk -- were sent back to Hong Kong after the authorities said they wouldn't pursue charges against them, as they were under 18 at the time of their detention.

All 12 detainees were consistently denied access to defense attorneys hired by their families and allocated government-approved attorneys to represent them at a trial that was effectively held behind closed doors.

Since beginning a nationwide crackdown in July 2015, authorities in provinces and cities across China have conducted large-scale purges of lawyers deemed not to be toeing the party line, with hundreds losing their licenses in Hunan alone in September 2020.

On January 4, Attorney Ren Quanniu received a notice from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, employed by Henan’s department of justice, informing him that the government had revoked his license to practice law in China. Lawyer Ren believes this ruling relates to the cases of “12 Hong Kongers,” and imprisoned “Shanghai Lawyer Zhang Zhan."

RFA

On Jan. 7, the Pizhou Municipal People's Court in the eastern province of Jiangsu jailed journalist Li Xinde for five years after finding him guilty of "illegal business activity."

Li’s son Li Chao was handed a one-year jail term at the same time.

'A very dangerous business'

Li was first detained by police in October 2019 and placed in "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)," not long after he published a claim that a court in Tianjin had wrongfully convicted a businessman.

Li, an investigative reporter, founded and ran the China Public Watchdog Network, which had a focus on exposing corrupt officials.

Beijing-based rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan commented via Twitter: "To speak out on behalf of those suffering injustice in today's society, and to monitor the agencies wielding state power, is a very dangerous business."

Zhang Yu, who heads the writers' group Independent Chinese PEN, said charges of "illegal business activity" are often brought against peaceful critics of the CCP.

"The main charge used to suppress freedom of speech in China is incitement to subvert state power, but they have to show in what part of their speech or writing they did that," Zhang told RFA.

"They may use illegal business activity if what they said was particularly sensitive, or if they can't really find evidence to support [subversion] charges in what they said or wrote," Zhang said. "It has nothing to do with [the defendant] actually having conducted illegal business activity."

RFA

Former Chinese journalist and renowned critic of internet censorship Zhang Jialong was sentenced to 18 months in prison on January 8 for his remarks on social media that were allegedly aimed at "spreading false information and provoking trouble". The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the assault on freedom of speech and calls on Chinese authorities to overturn the verdict and release Zhang immediately.

The 32-year-old former journalist with Caijing, a Beijing-based magazine, and Tencent was found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a broadly defined charge often levelled by the authorities against those who are critical of the Chinese government.

Zhang was jailed for 18 months, his wife Shao Yuan said after being notified by Zhang’s lawyer on January 8.

Zhang was arrested at his residence in Guiyang, Guizho Province on August 12, 2019 and has been held in police custody ever since. The authorities later accused him of spreading false information defaming the Chinese Communist Party on Twitter.

His Twitter posts related to human rights issues and internet freedoms in China.

Zhang has been detained since August and is therefore expected to be released on February 12. Nevertheless, Zhang reportedly vowed to appeal against the ruling.

Zhang has been targeted by the Chinese authorities for several years. In February 2014, hemade headlines after asking the then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to help “tear down this great firewall that blocks the Internet” during their meeting in Beijing.

He later published an op-ed in the global magazine Foreign Policy, calling on the U.S. government to deny visas to those involved in building and maintaining the Chinese great firewall of censorship. He was subsequently fired from Tencent.

IFJ

On 26 December 2020, one of Yu Wensheng's defence lawyers received the Jiangsu Provincial Higher People's Court's appeal decision upholding the original verdict and sentence against the human rights defender. The appeal decision was reached before the defence lawyers had the opportunity to submit their defence statement to the court and before they were able to make copies of and review all the case files.

The appeal decision was dated 13 December 2020, but when Xu Yan, Yu Wensheng's wife, phoned the Court on 16 December, a court official told her that the Court had yet to reach a decision.

It is not yet clear when, or if, Yu Wensheng, who is currently detained at the Xuzhou Detention Centre, will be transferred to a prison. Detention centre officials have rejected Xu Yan's requests to visit him, on the pretext of COVID-19 regulations. Xu Yan has requested the authorities to; allow family visitation as soon as possible, transfer him back to Beijing where she and their child live, and guarantee him access to adequate treatment for medical conditions affecting his right hand and his teeth.

FLD

The Hong Kong police served four media organisations with court warrants requiring the handing in of internal documents related to July's primary elections on January 6. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA), expressed concern about the chilling effect that such acts will have on the press and called on Hong Kong authorities to stop harassing journalists and media organisations.

On January 6, the Hong Kong police’s national security department turned up at the offices of online news outlets StandNews and InMedia, as well as media group Next Digital and its subsidiary newspaper Apple Daily with court orders. The media organisations were reportedly asked to hand in information about the pro-democracy camp’s primary elections held in July 2020 within seven days.

The police did not search the newsrooms.

Steve Li Kwai-Wah, a senior superintendent at the National Security Division, said during a press conference on January 6 that the authorities were not seeking to obtain journalistic materials. According to Li, the police were asking the media outlets to provide assistance in the investigation.

Both Apple Daily and StandNews said they would be seeking legal advice on the matter. Editor-in-chief of StandNews Chung Pui-kuen also said he was asked not to disclose details about the court order.

This came hours after the Hong Kong authorities arrested 53 pro-democracy leaders for their involvement in the primaries last year, including former lawmakers, district councillors, activists, and scholars. The authorities said the unofficial vote to choose opposition candidates for the city’s now postponed Legislative Council elections was part of a plan to “overthrow” the government.Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam, a journalist-turned-politician who used to work with StandNews and the BBC, was one of the detainees.

According to Ho’s Facebook admin, the police searched Ho’s residence and took away business cards and electronic devices she had used when working for the BBC. Ho was released on bail late on January 7.

IFJ

On 14 December 2020, Chang Weiping's parents held a protest in front of the Gaoxin branch of the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau, seeking his release and raising concerns about the risk of torture in detention. After the protest, both parents were summoned for interrogation several times. A CCTV camera was installed outside their home in Fengxiang county to monitor their movement and any visitors. Their mobile phones have since been confiscated and they are under de facto incommunicado house arrest.

One of Chang Weiping's brothers-in-law and his father-in-law also had their mobile phones confiscated. Chang Weiping's older sister was prohibited from visiting her father. Chen Zijuan, Chang Weiping's wife, has not been able to contact her father-in-law for over two weeks.

On 6 January 2021, Chen Zijuan submitted a complaint to the Baoji Municipal Procuratorate against local public security officials who visited her in Shenzhen eight times between 22 October 2020, the day Chang Weiping was detained, and 23 December 2020. The officials warned her not to conduct public advocacy for her husband. They also pressured her to delete her social media posts on Weibo about her husband's situation. The officials said she would lose her job if she defied their demands.

The two human rights lawyers who were initially hired to assist Chang Weiping had to withdraw from the case due to intense pressure from the authorities. Two new lawyers who took over the case said they could not give any media interviews due to official pressure. The new lawyers' first attempt to meet Chang Weiping was not successful. In a statement issued on 16 December 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders said the withdrawal of Chang Weiping's first lawyers was "telling of the gravity and scale of the situation faced by human rights defenders and lawyers in China.”

FLD

The Hong Kong government should not file charges against the 53 pro-democracy politicians arbitrarily arrested on January 6, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. All were arrested for “subversion” under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law (NSL), which the Chinese government imposed on June 30, 2020.

The 53 men and women arrested span the spectrum of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. They include veteran politicians and activists, such as Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung and Claudio Mo, and newcomers who joined the movement during the 2019 protests. The latter include Jeffrey Andrews, a social worker serving the city’s ethnic minority community, and Lee Chi Yung, a disability rights advocate. Many represent a broad cross-section of grassroots society long excluded from the city’s governance.

“Hong Kong authorities’ claims that discussing candidates and advocating for government action is somehow subversive is ludicrous,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s increasingly clear that Beijing’s commitment to Hong Kong’s ‘high degree of autonomy’ isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

Hong Kong police said that a public opinion poll conducted in July 2020 regarding pro-democracy candidates for an upcoming Legislative Council (LegCo) election constituted “subversion.” They said those arrested violated article 22 of the National Security Law, which states that anyone who “organizes, plans, commits or participates” in “seriously interfering, disrupting or undermining” the performance of the Hong Kong or central government bodies are subject to a penalty of up to life in prison for “principal offenders.” Among the 53 arrested, police said, six were organizers.

The legal definitions of “subversion” and other NSL crimes are overly broad and vague, and can include the peaceful exercise of human rights, enshrined in Hong Kong’s de facto constitution, the Basic Law. These rights are also protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is incorporated into Hong Kong’s legal framework via the Basic Law and expressed in the Bill of Rights Ordinance.

All but one of those arrested are being released on bail. Charges have yet to be brought against the 53, though they have to surrender their passports as a condition of bail. The prosecution said that Wu Chi-wai, former chairman of the Democratic Party, has kept one of his passports even though he was ordered to surrender his travel documents as part of bail conditions in an earlier case. Wu remains detained.

In addition, the police have frozen HK$1.6 million (US$206,000) in connection with the poll and delivered court warrants to four news organizations that require them to hand over information to the police for investigation. Hong Kong police should release Wu immediately, lift all bail conditions, and return everyone’s travel documents, Human Rights Watch said.

Since the Chinese government imposed the National Security Law in June, the authorities have intimidated and arbitrarily arrested pro-democracy activists, and encouraged people to report on one another to remove pro-democracy figures from key sectors of society, including education, the media, and civil service.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government have also accelerated their assault on the previously semi-democratic LegCo. Since 2016, they have disqualified pro-democracy activists from running for seats or unseated them after they were elected. Following the passage of the National Security Law, the Hong Kong government delayed the September 2020 LegCo elections for a year. Beijing then expelled four pro-democracy members of the legislature, leading other pro-democracy legislators to resign in protest. The arrests of the 53 politicians appears part of Beijing’s increasing actions to exert full control over the LegCo, Human Rights Watch said.

Concerned governments, including the United Kingdom, European Union countries, and the incoming Biden administration in the United States, should press for appointment of a United Nations special mandate holder to monitor and report on Hong Kong’s human rights developments, Human Rights Watch said. They should also impose coordinated targeted sanctions on officials responsible for violating the human rights of people in Hong Kong. Legislators around the world should express solidarity with their Hong Kong counterparts.

“Governments should urgently take concerted and concrete actions to ensure that Beijing pays a price for its escalating abusive behavior,” Wang said. “Standing with Hong Kong’s democrats needs to be more than a rhetorical commitment.”

HRW | HKFP

Authorities in Qinghai province in northwestern China last month detained a Tibetan woman known for her online advocacy of democracy and the rule of law, holding her for 10 days before releasing her under continuing surveillance, Tibetan sources say.

Tsering Tso, who had drawn police attention with her postings on the social media platform WeChat, was taken into custody at her home in the provincial capital Xining on Nov. 12 and brought by 10 officers to a detention center in Trika (in Chinese, Guide) county, an India-based Tibetan rights group said this week.

“In addition to surviving only on steamed buns and boiled water during her detention, she was subjected to ill-treatment and intimidation,” the Tibetan Centre For Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said, adding that detaining officers had hoped to pressure her to give up her advocacy work.

“By detaining people like Tsering Tso, the Chinese government is violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed and agreed to abide by. However, China is inflicting many other policies on Tibetans in Tibet that violate international laws,” TCHRD researcher Tenzin Dawa said.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one of some 60 rights instruments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948.

With the approach of the annual UN Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, estimates of political prisoners in Tibet range from more than 500 in U.S. Congressional reports to more than 2,000 in a database kept by the TCHRD.

“Tibetan political prisoners endure harsh prison conditions, including torture, deprivation of food and sleep, and long periods in isolation cells,” said the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, which notes that “opaque” Chinese record keeping makes it hard to determine how many are being held.

“In the current political climate imposed by Chinese authorities, even the most mild expressions of Tibetan cultural or religious identity can be punished by torture and arrest,” says the ICT.

One of the most famous prisoners of conscience is Tibet’s Panchen Lama, who vanished into Chinese custody as a young boy 25 years ago and has not been heard from since.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was recognized on May 14, 1995 at the age of six as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 10th Panchen Lama.

The recognition by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama angered Chinese authorities, who promptly took the boy and his family into custody and then installed another boy, Gyaincain Norbu, as their own candidate in his place.

The ranks of Tibet’s political prisoners include numerous monks, scholars, educators, and artists.

Beaten by police

Tsering Tso had also served a period of detention in 2017 after petitioning for the rights of Tibetans to apply for passports, during which she was physically assaulted by a security officer named Jamga who kicked her in the head, face, chest, and abdomen, leaving her hospitalized for her injuries, TCHRD said.

Police officers in November gave no reason for her detention following a trip she made to Thailand, Tso told RFA’s Mandarin Service in an interview.

“There were no concrete reasons for my arrest,” Tso said, adding, “But while I was returning from Thailand, I had a feeling they would arrest me, and I think they had already planned this from the beginning.”

“Finally, on Nov. 2, I was accused of violating the law by sending two message on WeChat related to issues of ‘stability,’ and I was detained for 10 days. I have no idea how my postings might have threatened stability,” Tso said.

A Nov. 13 announcement by the Trika county Public Security Bureau said that Tso had been charged with disseminating discussions of “provocative issues” on social media, adding that she would be fined and held in administrative detention for 10 days.

Tsering Tso had regularly written on topics like democracy and the rule of law on her social media platforms, Dawa told RFA in an interview. “But the Chinese government has always threatened people who speak up about these things.”

Reached for comment on Monday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, “We continue to press the [People’s Republic of China] to respect the freedom of speech and beliefs of its own people, and in particular those who seek to protect Tibet’s unique religion, language, and culture.”

Tibetan researcher held

A Tibetan researcher at Tibet University in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa has meanwhile also been detained, with no word given as to his whereabouts since he was taken into custody in June, RFA has learned.

Kunsang Gyaltsen, a student in his late 20s from Qinghai’s Mangra (Chinese, Guinan) county, is thought to have been arrested for circulating booklets containing unauthorized views of Tibet’s political history, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA, citing sources in the region.

“Chinese authorities have concealed all information about him, and despite numerous attempts by family members to learn where he is being held, there has been no response from authorities at all,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pema Gyal, an analyst at TCHRD, confirmed the account of Gyaltsen’s arrest and disappearance, adding that information about his current status is unavailable “because his parents have been denied access to him.”

A formerly independent nation, Tibet was taken over and incorporated into China by force nearly 70 years ago, following which Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India, and Beijing maintains a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces.

RFA

Authorities in the central province of Hunan have detained a prominent rights activist after he helped to publicize the story of Dong Yaoqiong, a woman sent to a psychiatric hospital for splashing ink on a poster of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in a Twitter livestream.

Ou Biaofeng was taken away from his home in Hunan's Zhuzhou city by officers of the Lusong district police department on Dec. 3, who held him under administrative detention for 15 days for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

"Four state security police came to our home without prior notice and took him away," his wife Wei Xinxin told RFA. "The fact that he was taken away so suddenly makes me quite worried, because it is a bit different from previous times."

Ou's friend Chen Siming said Ou's detention was linked to his public support for Dong.

"This is an open secret, and the police and state security police know that," Chen said.

"He was very concerned about [Dong's recent video] and has been in contact with Dong Yaoqiong on Twitter since then," he said.

Following her release from the psychiatric hospital, Dong posted a video on Twitter on Nov. 30 saying angrily that she had no mental illness and complaining of being held under long-term surveillance after her release.

Chen said the authorities likely blame Ou for international news coverage of the video, which broke Dong's public silence following her release.

"[Ou Biaofeng] was the only channel of communication between Dong and the rest of the world," he said. "Dong would never have gotten that much publicity without him."

"She also mentions Ou Biaofeng in the video."

Chen said Ou also has a track record of speaking out on human rights issues, and had been warned by the state security police that he risked a jail term over the cumulative effect of his activities.

A Changsha-based friend of Ou's who gave only the nickname Rosemary said that Ou remained in detention at the end of the 15-day sentence, and that police have been questioning his friends and fellow activists since his detention, suggesting that they may be building a case against him.

"I know of three or four people [who have been questioned]," Rosemary said. "He was held under 15 days' administrative detention, but the stability maintenance system kicked into place in other provinces, across the whole country ... and people were warned not to follow the case or speak out in support of him."

"We are worried this 15-day administrative detention is just a pretext [ahead of a criminal case]," she said. "[Other activists] have also had their administrative detentions converted into criminal detention."

On Tuesday, defense lawyer Zhang Lei was denied permission to meet with Ou, who is being held at the Zhuzhou Detention Center.

"When I was in detention, my friends could meet with me twice a week," Chen, who accompanied the lawyer, told RFA. "Now the detention center is saying that all meetings are suspended due to the pandemic."

"Not even lawyers are being allowed to meet with detainees," he said. "I am pretty worried, given what just happened."

RFA

Authorities put on trial Ge Zhihui, a human rights defender with disabilities, on December 15, 2020. Ms. Ge is an advocate for social and economic rights, who had been disabled by a demolition team while resisting the forced eviction of her family from their home. At her December 15 trial at the Beijing Fengtai District Court, she faced the charge of “picking quarrels & provoking trouble.” The prosecution’s case against her included the claims that Ms. Ge had showed support for persecuted human rights defender Cao Shunli, protested against officials who were interfering in a village election, and posted critical comments online. Except for her lawyer, nobody was allowed into the courtroom, not even her family members. The court did not announce a verdict. Police detained Ms. Ge in July 2019 and she has since languished at the Fengtai District Detention Facility. China ratified the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008, The UN’s disability rights and social, economic and cultural rights treaty bodies are both currently conducting reviews of China’s implementation of the treaties.

NCHRD

Chinese journalist and filmmaker Du Bin has been detained by authorities for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on December 16. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on the Chinese government to release Du immediately and respect Chinese citizens’ right to freedom of expression.

Du, 48, is a Chinese documentary filmmaker and journalist who has previously worked for The New York Times as a freelance photographer. According to Du’s sister Du Jirong, Du was arrested and detained by Beijing police on December 16 over vague allegations he was ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’.

The journalist’s detention may have been linked to his recent writing, including a book on the rule of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin scheduled for publication in 2021. According to South China Morning Post, Du has been under scrutiny from the Chinese Communist Party for writing and editing a number of politically sensitive books, such as a documentation of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

The police have recently summoned Du for questioning on multiple occasions, during which he was asked to delete sensitive contents on his Twitter account, according to Weiquanwang, a website tracking detentions and persecution of activists and dissidents in China, as well as Voice of America. Authorities have also inquired about his book projects, the reports said.

Violations of press freedom and journalists’ rights have increased in China in recent years as authorities continue to expand their control over the media. A number of citizen journalists were detained for their coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in China during 2020, while about a dozen foreign journalists have been expelled, partly due to the ongoing tension between the United States and China.

Last week, the IFJ documented the arrest of Haze Fan, a staff member who has been at the Bloomberg News Beijing bureau since 2017, on suspicion of taking part in activities endangering national security. In August, Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian journalist who had worked in the English service of the state run television CGTN, was detained by the Chinese government for the same accusation leveled against Fan.

IFJ

Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested eight activists in connection with a July protest, the latest in a widening crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Local media reported that those arrested included former legislators Wu Chi-wei, Eddie Chu and “Longhair” Leung Kwok-hung, along with Civil Human Rights Front’s (CHRF's) Figo Chan, among others.

The police accused them of “inciting, organizing and taking part in an unauthorized assembly,” referring to the July 1 demonstrations in which thousands defied a protest ban and rallied on the streets against the national security law imposed on the city by Beijing the day before.

Speaking to reporters after he was released on bail, Figo of the pro-democracy CHRF said Hong Kong authorities are oppressing dissidents by filing unreasonable charges.

“I strongly condemn the Hong Kong government for continuously suppressing Hong Kong citizens,” he said.

Since pro-democracy protests erupted in Hong Kong in 2019, the city’s police force has been at the forefront of Beijing’s efforts to eliminate the demonstrations.

According to a survey published by Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute on Tuesday, the police now rank last in public approval among Hong Kong's "disciplinary forces," which include first responders, correctional officers, People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison troops, anti-corruption investigators, and customs and immigration officials.

“The Police Force attains a rating of 40.3 marks, with 34% of the sample giving zero mark and continues to be the lowest among the nine disciplinary forces,” the organization said.

Chan Ka Lok, an associate professor and director of the Comparative Governance and Public Policy Research Center at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the low ratings were due to police abuse of power, and the force’s unwillingness to establish an independent investigation committee to assess police performance in handling the pro-democracy movement since 2019.

Tuesday’s arrests were carried out hours after the United States sanctioned another 14 Chinese officials over China’s move last month to expel four pro-democracy lawmakers from Hong Kong’s legislature. When asked whether there is any correlation, Chan told VOA that “the police's approach is a replay of ‘hostage diplomacy’ in the Cold War era.”

Since Monday, more than a dozen Hong Kong citizens have been arrested for their roles in pro-democracy demonstrations. Chan said these arrests resemble the mass arrests often used by the Chinese police force in the mainland and will turn Hong Kong into a place ruled by fear.

New pro-Beijing party

Meanwhile, a group of mainland-born, pro-establishment executives working in Hong Kong have founded a new political party in a bid to influence local government policies.

The Bauhinia Party was founded in May by three powerful executives: Li Shan, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and director of Credit Suisse Group AG; Huang Qiuzhi, chairman of CMMB Vision Holdings Limited; and Chen Jianwen, chairman of Bonjour Holdings Limited. Li and Wong were born in mainland China and later became Hong Kong residents.

According the Hong Kong Companies Registry, a government department that registers local and foreign companies, the party seeks to “promote a democratic political system best suited to Hong Kong based on the rule of law and civil liberty with the realization of universal suffrage as guaranteed by the Basic Law, so as to safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability.”

But Hong Kong commentator Stephen Shiu said the creation of the party shows Beijing is no longer satisfied with old pro-establishment forces and hopes a new party representing new immigrants from the mainland can help restrain “extremist forces” in the legislature.

Other analysts say that Beijing wants to put its own people into Hong Kong’s political arena.

They argue that to Beijing, even its closest ally, the New People’s Party, is still seen as a local party rather than one formed by its own people.

VoA News

Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai has been arrested and charged with fraud.

The 73-year-old Lai appeared in a Hong Kong courtroom Thursday along with two other executives of his Next Digital company and was accused of violating terms of the company’s lease of its office space. He was denied bail and his case has been adjourned until next April.

Lai was arrested at his home in August and charged with suspicion of colluding with a foreign country under the city’s new national security law imposed by China. Hours after his arrest, more than 100 police officers raided the headquarters of Lai’s Next Digital company, which publishes the newspaper Apple Daily. The newspaper livestreamed the raid on its website, showing officers roaming the newsroom as they rummaged through reporters’ files, while Lai was led through the newsroom in handcuffs.

He was one of at least 10 people arrested that day, including at least one of Lai’s sons.

Lai is already in legal jeopardy for his pro-democracy activism. He was one of 15 activists arrested earlier this year and hit with seven charges, including organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies and inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.

Lai’s arrest Thursday comes a day after three young Hong Kong pro-democracy activists -- 24-year-old Joshua Wong, 23-year-old Agnes Chow and 26-year-old Ivan Lam -- received jail sentences between seven and 13 1/2 months in connection with a protest outside the city’s police headquarters in June 2019.

Lai is one of the highest-profile Hong Kongers targeted by the new security law since it went into effect in July. Under the law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.

The new law was imposed by Beijing in response to the massive and often violent pro-democracy demonstrations that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of last year, and is the cornerstone of its increasing grip on the city, which was granted an unusual amount of freedoms when Britain handed over control in 1997.

VoA News

A court in Shanghai, China on Monday sentenced former lawyer and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for her reporting on the coronavirus outbreak, a harsh sentence that legal scholars say is aimed at having a chilling effect on Chinese rights activists.

Zhang, 37, was one of several citizen journalists who covered the initial outbreak in China’s central city of Wuhan. Their coverage painted a far more serious picture of conditions than the government’s official narrative of the spreading infection. Her reports included examples of the harassment of families of victims who were seeking accountability, according to human rights advocates.

Zhang was detained by authorities in May and accused of spreading false information, giving interviews to foreign media, disrupting public order and "maliciously manipulating" the outbreak. She went missing in Wuhan on May 14, according to media reports, and a day later turned up under arrest in Shanghai, more than 640 kilometers away. In court, she was formally charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” an accusation frequently used against Chinese activists.

Zhang’s lawyer, Zhang Keke, told VOA that Zhang Zhan has been on a hunger strike for nearly five months. She appeared in court in a wheelchair, all but refusing to speak — apparently using silence as a form of protest.

“The only thing she said is that citizens have the right to freedom of speech, and they have no right to question her,” Zhang Keke said.

According to the defense lawyer, the prosecutor during the trial accused Zhang of publishing so-called "problematic remarks" on China’s social media platforms including Weibo and WeChat. Yet the prosecution failed to provide any posts or videos as evidence.

“She didn’t fabricate any reports, nor has she created any harm to the society,” Zhang Keke said, adding that Zhang will likely appeal the verdict.

A Chinese human rights lawyer who asked to remain anonymous told VOA that the four-year sentence is extremely harsh. “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble usually leads to a fixed-term imprisonment of no more than five years. For first time offense, the sentence is usually one year,” he said, adding that Zhang’s harsh sentence was aimed at instilling fear among citizen journalists and civil rights lawyers.

Rights groups also condemned the ruling. Cédric Alviani, East Asia bureau head of the Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders, (RSF), called on the international community to increase pressure on the Chinese government until Beijing releases Zhang and other detained press freedom activists in China. “Zhang Zhan was only serving the public interest by reporting on the COVID-19 outbreak, so, she should never have been detained, not to mention, received a four-year prison sentence. This trial is actually a parody of justice,” Alviani told VOA.

The United Nations’ human rights office said in a tweet on Monday that it was troubled by the four-year sentence. “We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release,” the office said.

China has been accused of covering up the initial outbreak of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease and silencing whistleblowers, including the late Dr. Li Wenliang, and citizen journalists Fang Bing, Chen Qiushi, Li Zehua and Zhang Zhan, for exposing information that authorities did not approve for release. Dr. Li died of COVID-19 after Beijing silenced his attempts to warn the world about the coronavirus.

China has fiercely denied these accusations and said the country has been highly successful in containing the virus, compared to Western countries including the United States.

According to a survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists, China was the world’s leading jailer of journalists in 2020, with at least 47 people behind bars.

VoA News

At 2 pm on November 26, political police officer Guo (last name) asked human rights activist Li Qiaochu to meet him in Beijing Haidian District. Instead of engaging in a typical, approximately hour-long session complying with a police officer’s request to meet to address a concern, officials detained Ms. Li overnight. The next day, November 27, however, authorities conditionally released Ms. Li to her parents.

For Ms. Li’s release and for her to avoid imprisonment at that time, police told her parents that they had to sign a guarantee Ms. Li would no longer communicate on the internet. Otherwise, authorities warned, they would imprison her. In addition, upon Ms. Li’s release, police confiscated her computer and cell phone.

Earlier this year, on February 2, police detained human rights defender Xu Zhiyong, On February 16, officials also detained 29-year-old Ms. Li, Mr. Xu’s girlfriend, one of the initiators of the New Citizens’ Movement. Authorities continued to detain Mr. Xu but released Ms. Li on bail soon after her arrest.

After her release, Ms. Li appealed for Mr. Xu‘s release. Her efforts, however, merited ongoing threats of detainment and obligatory meetings with Gua and other officers. In fall/winter 2017, Ms. Li, also a researcher of labor issues, had accompanied volunteers to gather information and share data with heavily affected communities following an incident where the “low-end population” of migrant workers in the Beijing district had been driven out. There, the group assisted workers who had lost their jobs and housing.

In 2018, Ms. Li actively participated in the “MeToo” movement against gender violence, supporting the movement on platforms such as Twitter. She often stood in solidarity with various prisoners of conscience and their families.

In June 2019, doctors diagnosed Ms. Li with depression and advised her that she needed long-term medication. Nevertheless, she continued to participate in activities as usual.

From the start of December 2019, authorities stationed public safety personnel at her house. They have also surveilled her routes to and from work.

In the past, due to Ms. Li’s human rights activism, police regularly harassed her, Now, also due to Ms. Li’s past human rights activism, police continue to monitor her, violating her privacy and civil rights.

Now, in addition to police harassing and monitoring Ms. Li and violating her rights, she lives with the threat officials will imprison her if she communicates online.

ChinaAid

Sunday, November 30, Justice Bureau authorities phoned Beijing Lawyer Wang Yu informing her that the Chinese Government had revoked her license to practice law. Lawyer Wang had defended human rights activist Yu Wensheng, arrested in January 2018, currently imprisoned in Jiangsu, China. Since authorities sieged Mr. Yu, they have not only denied his wife’s visitation rights, they have revoked his rights to communicate with others, and have turned down requests for him to obtain dental treatment. Lawyer Wang has provided support and stood by Ms. Xu Yan, Mr. Yu’s wife, who has continued to fight for her husband’s rights during his detention.

On November 29, the day authorities revoked Lawyer Wang’s license, she and her husband, Lawyer Bao Longjun, joined with several other human rights lawyers, including Xie Yanyi, Wen Donghai, and Cheng Hai, to host a modest event to advocate for Mr. Yu. The support group petitioned the High People’s Court of Jiangsu to open trials on Mr. Yu’s case and allow his wife to visit him in prison.

As the first human rights lawyer arrested in the "709 incident,"* and because Lawyer Wang has helped Ms. Xu fight for Mr. Yu's rights, as well as helped many others defend their rights, she contravened the Chinese Communist Party CCP authorities’ taboo.

China typically resorts to implementing a series of suppressions toward human rights activists for example, lawyers face deliberate obstacles when representing human rights cases. In severe situations, they face the risk of police detaining them. If detained, the lawyer’s legal counsel also faces the risk of detainment for representing dissenting cases. Lawyer Wang’s case depicts this scenario.

In 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping initiated an action plan to weaken nascent human rights movements. CCP authorities apprehended Lawyer Wang in accordance with this plan. Authorities also arrested Lawyer Li Yuhan, Wang’s lawyer, currently serving her sentence in Liaoning, Shengyang. While defending Lawyer Li, Li Boguang, the lawyer who represented her, suddenly died in Jiangsu, Nanjing.

During the process of defending others, the four related lawyers suffered a series of persecutions. In January of 2016, authorities arrested Lawyer Wang, charging her for state subversion. After her imprisonment at a detention center in Tianjin, authorities released Lawyer Wang in July 2016.

As a lawyer’s livelihood depends on practicing law, revoking his or her license to practice law significantly impacts the survival of the individuals’ and his or her families’ survival. The CCP's current practice of revoking licenses of lawyers who defend human rights blatantly deprives them of their right to survive. CCP authorities also revoked the license to practice law for Lawyer Wang’s husband for representing human rights cases.

Human rights lawyer Chen Jiangang, exiled to America, said: “Both the husband and wife, have been deprived of their way out. Xi Jinping is the number one murderer, the chief CCP oppressor of human rights. Xi Jinping’s era does not allow for real lawyers.”

Lawyer Wang did not violate any laws or regulations during her time practicing law. Governing judicial organs forcibly revoked her license to practice law, against her own will. According to article 49 of “Lawyers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China,” the provincial judicial administration can revoke the lawyer’s license only if the circumstances of violation were severe.

For the first trial of a person accused of a crime, due process should define the Justice Bureau’s legitimacy and rationality. Only after confirmation can officials instruct the second deviation. Therefore, the punitive measures authorities imposed on Lawyer Wang violated her constitutional and legal rights, a serious crime.

The CCP perceives the human rights movement as a threat to its regime. Therefore, those like Lawyer Wang, who help wrongly accused and imprisoned rights defenders, as well as their defense lawyers, may also be wrongfully imprisoned. The authorities’ approach aims to put human rights activists in a situation where they’re isolated and without aid. Their ultimate goal? To shake the will of human rights workers.

In her work to help and defend human rights activists, as Lawyer Wang did not violate the law, the CCP’s punishment, revoking her license to practice law lacked justification. *Denotes the large-scale unified arrest in July of 2015 when CCP officials sieged more than 300 Chinese human rights defenders.

ChinaAid

On 26 November 2020, the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau in Shandong province once again rejected the request of the lawyer of human rights defender Ding Jiaxi to meet his client. The Public Security Bureau said that, as Ding Jiaxi is facing national security charges, allowing him access to legal counsel would "impede the investigation" or result in the "leaking of State secrets".

FLD